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Getting Started Special Interest Group January 2019

In this session, we talked about successfully using a rotated plan with plant tags and the Call Out tool, using the Data Tag tool, using the Align/Distribute Leader Lines command, and using classes, particularly when doing drawings for demolitions and additions.

Topics Covered:

00:17 We opened up a model with a landscape area because we wanted to demonstrate how to successfully use a rotated plan with plant tags and the Call Out tool. With the Call Out tool, you can select your preferred progression for placing the tag—whether label to marker, or marker to label—and select or customize the marker to suit your preferences. Because our plan was rotated, the marker placement was at an angle. Once it’s place, you can rotate it. This only occurs on the design layer. If you add the tags in the Annotation layer of the viewport, you won’t have this issue, because the viewport is already square. One timesaving tip is to take advantage of the different functions of the two Enter keys—hopefully you have an extended keyboard with a number pad. With the Call Out tool, for example, the Enter key on the part of the keyboard with the letters will take you to the next line of text in the label, whereas the Enter key on the number pad will close the dialogue box of the Call Out tool for you. These keyboard smarts can increase your productivity!

08:40 Something new in Vectorworks 2019 is the Data Tag tool. Tags placed on the design layer can update as you make changes, but sometimes they’re out of the crop area of the viewport, or have fonts and sizes that don’t match. The Data Tag tool is used on the Annotation layer of the viewport, and the tags are live to the objects so that when you change the object in the design layer, the tag updates in the viewport—the best of both worlds! The tags on the Annotation layer can be outside of the viewport crop.

16:00 Someone was having difficulty lining up the shoulders of call out notes. The challenge was that when the tags were to the left of the markers and aligned left, then it was difficult to also line up the shoulders. We demonstrated that the Align/Distribute Leader Lines command could align the shoulder points and the points where the shoulders met the text boxes, but couldn’t align the left side of the text boxes as well. That additional step had to be done by hand—but you could fix one and then copy and paste to make the others identical, or select all of the boxes and change their box size in the Object Info palette.

23:27 We opened up a file for an addition to discuss using classes. I tend to use a new class if I want to control the visibility of an object separate from other objects, if I want to control the graphic style of an object separate from other objects, or if I want to separate out objects for scheduling and reporting. You need to ask yourself: “Is there sometime that I want to see this object when I don’t want to see other objects” or “Is there sometime that I don’t want to see this object when I do want to see other objects.” We discussed, for example, whether you would need to have a demolition class for furniture if you already had a demolition class for your walls. I think that having a separate design layer for demolition, instead of just using a class for it, can complicate making further changes.

37:03 We demonstrated using the Split tool to create a demolition wall and using the Reshape tool to revise the demolition and existing walls together. Next, we went over how to repair “gaps” in the walls—left behind when you’ve joined walls and then removed one of them—by using the Remove Wall Breaks tool. We covered other workarounds for getting your existing, demolished, and proposed to appear how you want in your plans and elevations. Remember that if you don’t need to show different demolished objects at different times, then put them all in the same class—don’t create classes when you don’t need to. The wording of your class and layer names is up to you—use something that works for you!

Getting Started January 2019

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